Oh, be quiet, J.B. You're confusing us!

All the more reason we ought to hear less chatter from officials about presidential impeachment who aren’t directly involved in the process. Because it all too often seems like they don’t have any comprehension what it is they’re talking about.

Everybody has opinion on Trump outcome, … 

Take the case of Illinois’ governor, J.B. Pritzker, who back in April engaged in rhetoric that tried to make it seem as though he has long been a supporter of those people who want Donald Trump removed from office by force of Congress.

BUT THEN LAST week, the Politico newspaper published a Pritzker interview in which it seemed our governor was not quiet as hard-line on the impeachment issue. Perhaps he’d rather see Trump lose the 2020 general election and be removed from office that way.

But now, the Capitol Fax newsletter points out that J.B. may be backing away from that stance. Or as the Springfield-based newsletter phrased it, he’s “backing away from backing away.”

As the newsletter quotes the governor, “I think he should be out of office as soon as humanly possible. The only question to me is, is that gonna happen with an impeachment process or is that gonna happen with an election?”

Huh?!?

IT SEEMS TO me that Pritzker wants to be in the camp of people who don’t think much of Donald Trump (which according to the most-recent Gallup Organization poll includes 51 percent of the country). But the ranks of people who think it a national embarrassment that The Donald was ever permitted to occupy the Oval Office are split on this issue.

Pritzker not being able to take a definitive stance on presidential impeachment does nothing more than clutter the public discourse with more vague pronouncements that don’t do a thing to make the issue more clear to the public.

Personally, I’m amongst the ranks of people who’d see the impeachment process as a complete waste of time – largely because even if the House of Representatives with its Democratic Party majority votes to impeach the man, he’d still have to go on trial before the Senate.

… but does Pritzker know enough for it to matter?

Which has a Republican Party majority loaded with officials who are determined to protect the presidential reputation no matter how stupid he gets.

I REALIZE THAT the pro-impeachment types argue they’re making a political statement and that they want to be on the record as wanting to Dump Trump from the White House. They talk of putting the Senate on the record as being for The Donald, because they want to believe it will hold the GOP up to shame and ridicule.

Which, if you want to be honest, is nonsense. Largely because I’m convinced the Trump political backers have no shame. They’re also more than willing to spin the process into a claim that Trump has been vindicated – a word they’d prefer to use over “acquitted.”

Which they’ll hate to use because it would imply there was legitimacy to the charges against Trump to begin with.

Pushing for impeachment could do little more than create a lengthy process that ends with Trump remaining in office – and further motivating the ideologues into thinking they’re morally superior for backing Trump to begin with.

IF ANYTHING, IT’S going to take an outright electoral defeat to actually get Trump out of office (although it wouldn’t shock me if Trump backers were to think in terms of a coup ‘d etat to remain in office beyond January 2021, regardless of what the people say).

Yes, these are irrational political times, and we have to think in such terms, which are appalling but honest and truthful.

So Pritzker might have been right when he told Politico that there might not be enough time to work our way through the impeachment process and actually remove Trump from office. It doesn’t help matters if his stance keeps switching on the issue.

Could Trump return just like Smith did?

But if we look at Illinois political history, there’s an even more-embarrassing scenario – take the case of former state Rep. Derrick Smith, D-Chicago, who was expelled from the Illinois House in August 2012 following a criminal indictment. Only to get re-elected in the November election that year. Don’t put it past the Trump-ites to vote for the man out of spite to any impeachment attempt!

  -30-

So is this now the Denny Hastert law?

J. Dennis Hastert of Yorkville used to be thought of as one of the few Illinoisans to ever rise all the way to the rank of Speaker of the House of Representatives, and is actually the longest-serving Republican to ever hold that all-powerful political position.

HASTERT: Is this now lis legacy?

One that actually puts its occupant in line for the U.S. presidency in the event of an emergency that takes down both the president and vice-president.

BUT JUST AS Dan Rostenkowski fell from grace and the notion he was the all-powerful chairman of House ways and means, Hastert also took a plunge in reputation.

To the point where he probably has experienced an even bigger fall. Which is illustrated by the new law in Illinois approved by Gov. J.B. Pritzker that relates to statute of limitations for people to be charged with sex crimes.

It now seems that aggravated criminal sexual assault and abuse are now the equivalent of murder – as in there’s no amount of time that can pass without someone running the risk of criminal prosecution.

Come Jan. 1, anybody facing criminal suspicion can face prosecution if state’s attorney officials somewhere are capable of putting together a criminal case. Whereas it used to be that prosecutors had 10 years to put together a criminal case – AND the case had to be reported to police within three years of the alleged incident’s occurrence.

THIS LAW WAS enacted because of political people who wanted to appear to be doing something significant in response to the predicament caused by Hastert – who once was a high school teacher and wrestling coach who later in life had some of his former students claim he took liberties with them of a sexual nature.

The incidents supposedly occurred back when Hastert was their teacher and coach in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but it wasn’t until the mid-2010s that the allegations became public.

Which meant that even if sufficient evidence could be procured, so much time had passed that Hastert was never in danger of criminal prosecution.

PRITZKER: Signed the measure into law

But it was because of actions that Hastert took to try to keep people from talking about things that eventually resulted in J. Dennis being found guilty of something criminal – which resulted in him getting a prison term (he’s been free for a couple of years now) and becoming the highest-ranking government official to ever have to serve time for a crime. While also proving the notion that it's the cover-up, and not the crime itself, that gets you in the most trouble!

WHICH HAVE SOME people convinced that something wasn’t fair. Which also is what motivated legislators of both Republican and Democratic partisan leanings to sponsor the bill that passed overwhelmingly this spring before getting Pritzker’s approval last week.

So now, theoretically, we could have prosecuted Hastert for the crime, instead of the technicality. Although I have to admit to being a bit wary of such incidents.

Usually because the passage of so much time means the actual evidence becomes weaker, more heresay, to be honest.

To be honest, the strongest criminal cases are the ones whose defendants literally are caught in the act right at the time of their alleged criminal occurrence.

WHICH IS THE point of statute of limitations laws – acknowledging that there are some instances where it is not practical to punish someone for something that happened many years ago and where people might have been too ashamed to talk about it at the time of occurrence.

Although some see that as a good thing (it means sexual predators cannot escape their actions ever) and a bad (people may wind up getting prosecuted and convicted based on testimony from people whose memories may not be quite as accurate as they once were due to the passage of time).

Not that I don’t doubt some people aren’t going to let that possibility concern them – they may want more prosecution, regardless of how solid the charges may be.

And Hastert’s contribution to our public discourse may well be something he did long before his 8 years as House Speaker (and 20 years in Congress overall) back in the days when he was a nobody to the masses – and “coach” to a select few individuals living out in what some of us would have dismissed as “the boonies” of the Chicago area.

  -30-

EXTRA: Chicago a city of conventions, but also of sanctuary as well

Chicago likes to boast that we’re some sort of ultimate destination for places looking to hold a convention.

'Ground Zero' of the immigration protest movement this week

We have all these hotels, along with facilities capable of staging such events. When combined with all the other attractions of the city that people can stop by and visit while doing business here, we’d like to think there just isn’t any legitimate reason for people to want to do a convention elsewhere.

OF COURSE, THERE are those who’d rather have their events in Las Vegas – figuring that out-of-towners would feel more comfortable with gambling away their money rather than taking the time to study our city.

But nonetheless, we like to think we’re a major convention center. To the point that it becomes a big deal when Chicago actively tries to chase away a group that wanted to hold its professional gathering here.

But that’s just the case with the convention that began Tuesday at the Marriott Marquis Hotel – located just a block away from the McCormick Place convention hall.

For it seems the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency put together a program for all the businesses they work with in the course of their work. It would be a gathering of a who’s who of the federal immigration enforcement world. A chance for them to talk shop about their industry.

WHICH INCLUDES THE ways and means by which people are deported from the United States. Which, since we’re a sanctuary city that officially does not cooperate with the federal government in terms of enforcing immigration laws means we don’t even want their business.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot went so far as to try to get the hotel chain to kick the federals out, get them to find some other city to hold their gathering. It didn’t work. They’re still here in Chicago, and it means we’ll get to see people picketing the hotel to express their disgust with what it is these people do for a living.

It does seem that the hotel has agreed to prohibit immigration officials from trying to detain any guest of the hotel whose citizenship status is not quite clear. But that’s as far as they’re willing to go. They don’t want to lose any business.

So the gathering took place, with acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan being the key speaker Tuesday. And this will be one event that many Chicagoans will be more than glad to see finish its business and move on by week’s end.

  -30-

Political apologies rarely work, still wind up taking ‘hit’ for trash-talk

There’s something about any attempt by a political official to apologize for saying something stupid that always manages to come off as insincere – it winds up sounding like the only thing you’re “sorry” for is getting caught!

Somewhere, a political operative thinks this is clever

That certainly is the case for the Illinois Republican County Chairman’s Association – which how has on its Facebook page a prominent post apologizing for the fact that they let a lame gag get put on their site to begin with – one that attempted to trash the four members of Congress whom President Donald Trump has engaged in trash-talk against.

IT SEEMS THAT Republican-leaning political operatives created a graphic labelling the four as “the Jihad Squad” and implying just how subversive we ought to consider them to be.

“If you don’t agree with their socialist ideology, you’re racist,” is what we’re told. Implying that Donald Trump is totally justified in all of his trash talk against the women – whom the one thing they have in common is that they’re not white.

The graphic, which actually is a parody of sorts of the advertising posters for the “Charlie’s Angels” films (the more recent movies, not the ‘70’s era television show), is labeled as being put together by the national Republican County Chairman’s Association, which then had it put on the sites of their various affiliated organizations.

The original motivating image?

Which led to the Illinois chapter early Monday publicly removing the post, with chapter President Mark Shaw saying the post was “unauthorized” and, “I am sorry if anyone who saw the image was offended by the contents.”

NOW FOR ALL I know, Shaw may well be sincere in his apology. He may well be shuddering at the thought that he’s affiliated politically with the kind of people who’d think this ad parody is somehow clever. Even Illinois Republican Chairman Timothy Schneider was embarrassed, saying he thinks the graphic, “does not reflect … the Republican Party’s values.”

But I don’t doubt there are people who consider themselves good and loyal Republicans who have absolutely no problem with this kind of image being spewed and who will now think the “problem” is that the GOP has people who can’t get on board with their initiative.

Would Farrah, Jaclyn and Kate be offended?

As for the parody, I think it’s tacky depicting Rep, Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., wielding a shotgun, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., packing a pistol, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., looking like an angry be-yotch and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, bursting into flames.

But even more so, I think it comes across as downright lame. It’s almost the kind of image I’d expect that 12-year-olds would find amusing. But then again, there are times I wonder if the mentality of our political people has delved down to the level of pre-teens who think fart jokes are funny.

WHICH MEANS I can almost sympathize with the Republican operatives who now have to address this image and try to explain away how anyone could seriously have thought it would possibly attract anyone to the political cause.

I don’t doubt it will keep the hard-core ideologues aligned. But then again, that may well be the political strategy for the 2020 election cycle.

Make sure the ideologues turn out in force to back the re-election of Donald Trump and anybody whose presence would not conflict with ‘the Donald,’ and scare off anybody who’d be inclined to want to raise the elevation of political discourse these days.

Political spots certainly have changed

But then again, I also don’t doubt there are some who are ideologically-inclined to want to sink the level of discourse to this level – it’s much easier to understand. Four crazy broads! All of them with big mouths!  And most importantly, none of them white!

NOT EXACTLY AN issues-based campaign theme. Not something that would bring out the intellect in would-be voters.

More like something simple that would reduce the election cycle down to something we can either laugh at – or lambast those who don’t think it’s funny as being mere “snowflakes.”

Which in-and-of-itself is a political label that gets used far too often.

Although I think one anonymous Internet commenter may have stated it best – this “Jihad Squad” graphic is just too stupid for anyone thinking about voting to take seriously. Although we’ll have to see if it’s too stupid that it winds up costing anybody a vote come Election Day.

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: Some Republicans are tossing out their own response, trying to claim Democrats are no better. They're citing a blurb posted on the website of the Kankakee County Democratic Party that equates those "Make America Great Again: caps with the pointy hoods of the Ku Klux Klan -- if only those hoods were an obnoxious bright-red. Crain's Chicago Business is reporting that Democrats are in a similar circumstance for their Internet attempt at humor. Although I can't help but wonder who is really offended by the gag.

EXTRA: ¿La segunda guerra civil?

It shouldn’t be a shock – our society’s demographics are changing, and some people are determined to ensure that nothing changes.

Let's hope that rallies such as these don't devolve … 

It’s the most obvious explanation for why a certain segment of our society supports Donald Trump, no matter how moronic his behavior as president is or becomes an embarrassment to all of us.

SO THE RESULTS of a series of polls that came out this week shouldn’t be a surprise.

Yes, the growing Latino population of our nation is grossly offended by Trump, and his behavior threatens to cause harm to the political backing they might otherwise have been expected to provide to Republicans, at-large.

Yet it also seems true there are those people who don’t give a rat’s culo about that. They see their continued support for Trump as a way of fighting back against what they would view as a “takeover” of our society.

Take the Morning Consult poll for the Politico newspaper, which found that 51 percent of those surveyed actually approved of the notion of mass raids in large cities across the country to get “those frickin’ foreigners” out of the country.

YES, ONLY 11 percent of those who call themselves Democrats strongly supported the idea, but some 46 percent of those people who refuse to pick a party label also favored the action – which withered away into a nothingness that did little but scare up a segment of our society.

… to gruesome carnage such as this of a century-and-a-half ago?

But then there were the polls done by Miami-based Latino Decisions, which found 51 percent of Latinos think that racism against the Spanish-speaking enclave of our society is a “major” problem, while another 35 percent think it’s “somewhat” of a problem.

And as for the statement, “I am frustrated with how President Trump and his allies treat immigrants and Latinos, and I worry that it will get worse if Trump is re-elected,” only 11 percent of Latinos surveyed did NOT agree.We definitely don’t see eye to eye – the segments of our society whose ethnic origins lie in Latin America and those who are of Irish/Scottish mix but would insist on use of the “real Americans” label to describe themselves.

We definitely don’t see eye to eye – the segments of our society whose ethnic origins lie in Latin America and those who are of Irish/Scottish mix but would insist on use of the “real Americans” label to describe themselves.

The ultimate Trump legacy?

THE FACT IS that the national outcome ultimately will be a “numbers” game – similar to how the original U.S. Civil War outcome ultimately came down to a matter of the Union North having some 20 million people and the Confederate South having only half as many – with some 4 million of those being the slaves whom the South didn’t want to regard as full-fledged human beings.

Considering that many of the people now determined to revere the memory of that Confederacy of old are the same ones eager to embrace Donald Trump, it would seem that some of us haven’t learned. Or are determined to fight the same ol’ battles.

Still peaceful, for now

Which is the real shame befalling us as a society. I’m optimistic enough to think the day will come when those of us who will be the descendants of Trump-ites will wonder how they could ever have been deluded enough to believe such nonsense.

Or how much of our lives were wasted away by our inability to see past our differences?

  -30-

Send Trump back? Who’d want him!

President Donald Trump is an ethnic mixture of Scottish and German – the latter of which cause some people to deride him by reminding us at every chance they get that the family name originally was ‘Drumpf.’

TRUMP: Deport Donald? Who'd want him!

Back in the days when they were the immigrants, and the name change was made to come up with something they thought sounded more “American.”

SO NOW THAT the president is on a rhetorical kick of wanting to deride members of Congress whom he thinks aren’t American-enough to belong in this country – literally saying they should “go back to the broken and crime-infested countries they came from” – perhaps we ought to give it a thought.

Should we take this sorry excuse of a U.S president, revoke his American citizenship, and ship him off to either Scotland or Germany? Send him back “home,” so to speak!

Actually, that would be a ludicrous fantasy – and not because of the fact that Trump by birth is a Noo Yawker from the borough of Queens (even though he’d like us to think he’s the ultimate in Manhattan sophistication).

More it’s ludicrous because I suspect that neither Scotland nor Germany would want anything to do with The Donald or anyone in his pompous, egotistical family. They probably think they dodged a bullet of sorts by having his family emigrate away from them all those generations ago.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Not easily silenced

EITHER THAT, OR maybe they’d concoct some sort of scheme by which they could confiscate his immense family wealth for themselves – thereby reducing the Trump family to penniless status.

Not that I expect this to happen either. I suspect our society is stuck with the Trump ego – and is going to have to live with the shame of knowing it really was possible for a vocal minority of voters to actually prevail in the 2016 election cycle.

PRESSLEY: Deport her to … Cincinnati?

A vocal minority that probably thinks it is entirely clever for Trump to go around using his Twitter account to spew nonsense like he did this past weekend – where he derided four outspoken members of the Democratic caucus of Congress for, basically, not treating their own ethnic and racial origins as something they ought to be greatly ashamed of.

TLAIB: Serving Michigan proudly

For what it’s worth, he was talking about Rep. Ilan Omar, D-Minn., who was born in Somalia and lived in a refugee camp in Kenya before coming to this country as a 12-year-old and ultimately settling in Minneapolis.

BUT THEN HE lumped in three other members of Congress – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan – as others who don’t really belong here.

All are U.S.-born, and in the case of Ocasio-Cortez may be Puerto Rican-ethnic but was raised in the suburbs of New York City. Only in the mini-mind of Donald Trump would they somehow not belong here, where I suspect his real objection to them having a prominence in society is due to the fact he regards many women as being decorative objects – and nothing else.

Think about it seriously. What are we going to do – deport Pressley back to her birth city of Cincinnati? It’s nonsense-talk like this that causes many to deride him as the “twit who Tweets” and to regard his constant use of Twitter as a true social embarrassment on our society – far worse than anything that any of the Congressional women has had to say.

ALTHOUGH IF YOU really want the truth, I suspect his attack on the Congresswomen was a deliberate tactic in its’ timing – as in Sunday, the day that was supposed to see federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials conducting many raids to deport all kinds of foreigners whom he also thinks don’t really belong “here.”

OMAR: Learned English off American TV

It seems the raids fizzled out, and really didn’t amount to much of anything.

Yet instead of now wondering how full of hot air Trump is for all his immigration raid trash talk, the focus is instead going toward Trump wanting to kick Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez out of the continental U.S.

Although even that wouldn’t achieve much – because Puerto Rico is a U.S. commonwealth. Meaning even if she were sent back to the Caribbean island, she’d still be within U.S. reach and more than capable of speaking out against Trump nonsense on oh so many issues. Nobody silences AOC that easily!

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: It's worth pointing out that everybody here is standing before, and serving the interests of, the very same U.S. flag.

Trump seems determined to use immigration trash-talk to get re-elected

President Donald Trump wants another term in office, and seems determined to create the impression of himself as the guy who kicked all those frickin’ foreigners out of this country.

TRUMP: National equivalent of playground bully?

He’s the guy who wanted a series of national immigration raids to create a sudden boost in the actual number of deportations.

OF COURSE, SO many details got out about where and when these raids would take place that Trump put a hold on the plan – while insisting he did it as a courtesy to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who was working to put together a border aid package in Congress.

Not that anybody believed Trump would do anything out of courtesy to anybody but himself. Which is why the talk is starting up again that raids of a sort will start Sunday.

With activists saying they’re planning a protest rally in Chicago for Saturday, hoping to get several thousand individuals to publicly express their disgust with The Donald and his immigration desires.

This comes as Trump made his announcement Thursday of his latest desire to get information about non-citizens living in this country. He contemplated an executive order that would require a Census Bureau question as in being able to enact his desires without having to get Congress to sign off on them first, which truly is the “American Way” of doing things.

TRUMP, WHO HAS tried to get the 2020 Census population count altered so as to include questions about the citizenship status of those reporting, now says he’s going to require federal government agencies to turn any information over to the Commerce Department so it can be compiled into incriminating information.

He’s not concerned with the several court rulings that have found there to be no legitimate purpose to having such a question as part of the Census. Because the purpose of the Census is to get as accurate a count as possible of the U.S.’s actual population on April 1, 2020.

And Trump is determined enough that his way MUST prevail that he’s going to get his question included in some form, so as to gather up as much information as possible as to who exactly is here.

Which has some concerned that all Trump is doing is trying to gather intelligence that could someday be used to single out even more people for deportation. Trump backers try to claim that it’s overly cynical and paranoid to think ill of the presidential intentions on this issue.

BUT IT PROBABLY says much about the lack of trust the majority of our society has in the executive abilities of Trump that we don’t fully trust him. And for good reasons.

Because this is the man who started off his political portion of life by letting it be known he was more than willing to single out for abuse certain types of people – and was more than willing to kowtow to the segment of our society that has a strong xenophobic streak running down its spine.

The kind of people who will wet their pants with glee at the very thought of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents working overtime on Sunday to weed people out, arrest them, then deport them.

And those who are willing to think that the courts’ refusal to go along with Trump’s desires for a Census Bureau question that some in our society would not feel comfortable answering is merely evidence that the courts themselves ARE the problem.

IT WILL BE curious to see if this becomes a winning strategy; letting the ideologues amongst us think they are succeeding in reclaiming our country from those of us who’d prefer to see American ideals prevail in the way things are done.

Which is why I found interesting the results of a Morning Consult poll that shows one-time Vice President Joe Biden holding slight leads over would-be presidential challengers Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren.

But that is amongst people who identify themselves as most likely to actually vote. Which means it could well be in the hands of those slightly-more apathetic about casting ballots to decide whether we actually replace Trump come November of 2020.

Which may well be part of the Trump strategy as well – stir up so much trash that the bulk of people will be dismayed enough to not bother voting. Truly a sad strategy that says little about the man’s inherent character.

  -30-

High court manages to upset everybody's beliefs w/ pair of rulings

Perhaps this is the Supreme Court of the United States’ idea of what constitutes bipartisanship – rule in ways that manage to offend the sensibilities of just about everybody.

The nation's Supreme Court issued a pair of rulings that … 

I couldn’t help but have that reaction myself when I learned Thursday of the way the court ruled with regards to gerrymandering and the Census.

WITH REGARD TO the latter, the Supreme Court ruled against the desires of President Donald Trump – who wanted the Census Bureau’s official population count next year to include questions about one’s citizenship.

Making it seem that Trump and his ideologue minions want to officially regard non-U.S. citizens as non-people who wouldn’t get fully counted.

Who knows? Maybe Trump fantasized about compiling all that information into some sort of hit list of people who could then be harassed openly – so as to appease the jollies of the xenophobic types who are inclined to think that Trump himself is the equivalent of a “royal highness” of the Americas.

Which we all ought to realize applies only to states whose political majorities lean toward Trump-type Republicans.

THE SUPREME COURT ruled against that notion, with a 5-4 vote in favor of a legal opinion saying the official argument that such information is needed to enforce the Voting Rights Act is fraudulent.

For what it’s worth, that’s the same voter tally the high court reached in another measure – one that said lawsuits challenging the setting of political boundaries based on political considerations are not proper.

In short, all of those Republican-leaning states whose legislatures chose to draw boundaries meant to benefit their own partisan interests aren’t necessarily doing anything illegal. For the court ruled that such action is a state issue – and not one for the federal courts to go about trying to overturn.

… struck down Trump's desires to use the Census, ...

I don’t doubt that the people who would have wanted some sort of singling out of so-called foreigners when it comes to the Census will be pleased the court left the composition of their Legislatures alone.

WHILE OTHERS WHO would have seen the population count measure as a blatantly-partisan political move that deserved to fail now are wondering how in the heck did those nitwits on the high court blow it so badly with regards to undoing the practice of gerrymandering – the rigging of electoral boundaries for political purposes.

Maybe it’s all that time walking around wearing those black robes that look like dowdy dresses.

There is one key to comprehending these two actions – the votes were similar. By and large, the people who wanted to single out non-citizens in the Census count also wanted to protect the Republican-leaning Legislatures. The people who wanted to stop the Census from becoming a political weapon also wanted to have the court undo Legislature composition they consider to be unfair and unjust.

The difference was in the form of Chief Justice John Roberts, who as it turned out voted against the Census count measure and for the measure saying that gerrymandering is not an issue for the Supreme Court to decide.

REINFORCING THE CONCEPT that Roberts is the “swing” judge on the court whose opinion breaks a tie either way. Meaning that much of America probably despises him these days – although for different reasons that say much about our own partisanship leanings than anything about the merits of the laws themselves.

Personally, I don’t doubt the Census question was a hate-inspired proposal. Seeing it die off is a good thing.

… while indirectly benefitting Madigan

While as for gerrymandering, I wonder if the court would have viewed it differently if the legal case at hand regarded the structure of the Illinois Legislature. Would the ideologue-minded people have been willing to approve a measure that targeted the Democratic-leaning Illinois House and state Senate – rather than the measures that focused on blatantly-Republican leaning states.

Which may be the way I wind up viewing the latter ruling – it offers some protection to the political set-up we have in Illinois, which means it sort of benefits the interests of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. Most definitely a concept that will offend the conservative ideologues as much as their own partisan rants offend me.

  -30-

Could college tuition make 25-candidate campaign instead nothing more than a Warren/Sanders brawl?

We’re up to 25 people with delusions that they’re the one capable of running for president as the Democratic Party’s nominee, with most would-be voters dreaming that everybody else is going to come to their senses and drop out – rather than run against their preferred candidate.

SANDERS: Writing off student loans

But just will be the factor that causes many of these political dreamers to “give it up” to take the advice of comedian Samantha Bee and run instead for the U.S. Senate – instead of for the post that offers up a mansion and private airplane as being amongst its perks?

A PART OF me wonders if Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren – the senators from Vermont and Massachusetts, respectively – have latched onto the idea that will sway would-be Democratic voters into making this a two-way campaign between them.

While pushing everybody else off to the political sidelines.

For Sanders and Warren are the two who have tried most to make an issue out of a college education becoming more affordable.

Warren has talked about tuition being free at public colleges. While Sanders is now going further in talking about wanting to erase the debt that students incurred in taking out the loans that helped pay their tuition bills.

HIS LINE OF logic is that it benefits no one – and actually defeats the purpose of a better-educated society – if students are perpetually in debt upon graduation.

WARREN: Tuition-free public education?

Writing off all those unpaid loan bills would benefit the students, and actually result in less time being wasted by entities that are trying to collect debts from people who, realistically, can’t afford it.

Personally, I’m not swayed by the idea – largely because I remember back some three decades ago when I was a freshly-graduated university-type scholar.

I managed to repay my loans in full – even though I also made what I’m sure some (such as my father) would regard as the asinine decision to want to be a newspaper reporter. Not exactly the highest-paid of professions we have in our society. 

FURTHERMORE, I SPENT those early-reporter years with the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago – a place that actually took a certain amount of pride in the low wages they paid (my memory recalls starting at $190 a week – which dropped down to $156 weekly once taxes were deducted).

O'ROURKE: Can we write-off Beto yet?

Yes, if I hadn’t had to make that monthly loan payment, I’d have had a few extra bucks. But I did make it. And also have to admit it helped that at exactly the point in time I was finished off with the loans – my future employer gave me a significant pay boost.

Which became the point in time when I could start living a more-adult lifestyle. Maybe I could have had a financially-easier time of it had I made other choices, but those were choices I made -- and I paid the cost, without expecting a financial write-off someday.

Now part of the problem, as I comprehend it, is that college costs are significantly-higher now than they were back in the Age of Reagan. When I look at the costs of college that exist now, I wonder if it would be possible to borrow so much money to afford the tab.

BUT A LARGER part of the problem lies in part with those students who, for whatever reason, wind up not completing college – but took out loans to pay for the years they attended.

BEE: Run for Senate, instead

They’re whacked with significant debt without the potential future earnings that a degree would offer them. Note I said “potential.” There’s no guarantee – as it’s usually only the most promising of students who actually wind up employed to the standard of their dreams.

So I expect Sanders will encounter some opposition from those who think “we paid off our loans, let the deadbeats do theirs.” But there also will be others who will think the theory of “free college” outweighs all others, and will be more than willing to ignore all other would-be presidential candidates just because of it.

So maybe it’s beneficial that the number of presidential dreamers on the Democratic side be reduced. Although I can’t help but be dismayed at the notion that it could be something as trivial as this that causes the ranks to be reduced to a more-comprehendible number.

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Trump talk more about scaring people silly, not accomplishing anything

I’m not sure how seriously we ought to take the latest round of Trump trash talk that says, beginning Sunday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials will step up their efforts to remove from this country those individuals who haven’t dotted all the “I’s” and crossed all the “T’s” involved in getting a valid visa.

TRUMP: Sunday's the day; no more foreigners

Trump says the efforts will focus on certain cities, places that he thinks are so-called hell-holes that have too many foreigners. Yes, our very own Chicago is on the list.

SO ARE WE going to see people getting picked up, hauled away in a van, and wind up being processed for removal from this country?

Is this weekend literally “the end” of their stay in the United States for some 1 million people, as President Donald Trump insists?

I don’t doubt there are individuals who will, by coincidence, come to the attention of federal immigration officials and wind up being processed for removal this weekend.

But let’s be frank (or should we be Francisco?) here and say I doubt there will be much of a coordinated effort taking place across the more urban areas of our nation, all at the whim of Donald J. Trump.

FOR ONE THING, I suspect such an organized effort is beyond the organizational skills of federal immigration officials. If anything, it might be better to study how many people continue to evade the attention of immigration this weekend, or in coming weeks.

I suspect that Trump’s trash talk is more about el Donaldo thinking he can scare the chones off of so many Latinos by making them think the end is near for their search of a better life in the United States.

Because the dreaded la Migra is going to come and get you, similar to how some people like to tell their children tales of the boogeyman coming to take you away.

PRITZKER: The protector?

Trump thinking he can terrify Latinos (and anybody else who isn’t “white American” enough to satisfy his definition of “belonging” in this country) probably gives him a tingle of joy. Although for all we know, that ‘tingle’ is really just the president wetting his pants.

OR MORE IMPORTANT, it could be something he says just to give his silent majority (which is most definitely not silent and really only consists of about one-third of our society’s population) a jolt – to the point where they’ll sing his praises and talk up a storm about how we need “four more years” of a Trump presidency.

It’s political rhetoric, not serious public policy. Because it is delusional to think that Trump could seriously achieve the notion of removing more than a million people from this country without causing a sudden vacuum in our society.

Then again, I have to wonder about the three bills Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law on Friday – all related to immigration and preserving the notion that our state government views the federal immigration officials who get worked up over xenophobic fantasy as political nitwits.

Illinois now forbids the private detention centers that immigration officials want to hold all these foreigners until they can get around to deporting them. Also, non-citizens will be able to apply for financial aid if they’re accepted at state colleges.

AND LOCAL LAW enforcement officials across Illinois will be prohibited from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Which theoretically means immigration officials will have to do their own work in terms of enforcing federal law. Local cops will stay out of it.

Which ought to make sense to everybody. Except for nativist ideologues who want to view police of all types as a unified force that harasses people who aren’t exactly like themselves.

As much as Trump is trying to gain the support of those ideologue-inclined individuals, Pritzker wants people to know clearly that he (and Illinois) is on the complete opposite side of this political equation.

Think of it this way; Trump wants to scare up the foreigners, while Pritzker wants to frighten the ideologues who can’t comprehend a society that is accepting to all. What does it say about you personally if you side with Trump and his trash talk?

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Now it’s Burke’s spouse who’s paying for his purely political ‘sins’

Is Anne Burke now as much a political … 

Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, the spouse of the alderman now under criminal indictment, is coming under her own partisan fire from people upset with politics-as-usual – rather than actions meant to benefit themselves instead.

Burke is the alderman who is going to push to the limit a defense that his actions in the City Council are merely the way things get done. It seems his wife will wind up having to make the same arguments over-and-over.

… target as husband Ed?

FOR IN THE case of Anne Burke, she has the authority to make appointments to fill vacancies within the judiciary of Cook County. It would seem that she used her power to place people with whom she has political ties.

Which has more activist-types offended that Anne Burke didn’t give preference to “their” people instead of “her” people.

Her first offense occurred earlier this month when she used her authority to appoint a white attorney to be a judge in a sub-circuit meant to cover much of Chicago’s West Side. The intent when the sub-circuit was created in the 1990s was that it would somehow result in more judges of an African-American persuasion being picked.

Now, politicos of Latino ethnic origins are offended.

THEY SEE A different sub-circuit – one meant to cover city neighborhoods such as Pilsen, Little Village and Back of the Yards (all of which have become Spanish-speaking enclaves) and stretching out to Cicero. Where there also is a predominance of people who habla en Espanol.

Yet as various Latino aldermen and legislators are pointing out, that judicial post was given to Cara Smith, whose qualifications were serving as an aide to the Cook County sheriff’s police, where Sheriff Tom Dart is a long-time ally of Alderman Burke.

There also are signs that she gave Burke’s aldermanic re-election campaign last year a significant campaign contribution, which has those of a more criminally-conspiratorial mindset thinking she bought the judicial post. Anyway, she was sworn in to the post on Monday.

GARCIA: As critical of her as much as him

It wasn’t given to an attorney of Latino origins. For all I know, there were no such attorneys who were even considered for the post.

THE LATINO POLITICOS, including Rep. Jesus Garcia, D-Ill., who sent along a letter of support, are trying to make this an issue of ethnic prejudice, just as those interested in the initial appointment wanting to see it as a case of black political empowerment being undermined.

Of course, there’s also the fact that the Latino activist types tried seriously in the aldermanic elections this year to undermine Ed Burke and get him defeated from the City Council post he has held for half a century.

Garcia was prominently behind that effort – which failed, as voter turnout was particularly strong in the precincts of his ward that still have sizable white-ethnic populations – rather than the parts that have become solid Latino (mostly Mexican-American) neighborhoods.

So I don’t doubt this is partisan politicking, just as much as the Burkes’ activities may have its own political taint.

THEY COULDN’T BEAT him on Election Day (Ed solidly won re-election as alderman without a runoff, while Anne won a 10-year term to her Supreme Court post last year), so they’ll dredge up other dirt.

The image the alderman may be giving off

Which may, or may not, be true. In politics, “dirty pool” is downright fair – or to be expected – from all sides.

So I don’t doubt that much of these allegations is about trying to make up for Burke electoral victories – which some of those of an activist mentality likely regard as defeats for the good of the people. At least their people.

And taking a few pot shots at Ed Burke’s wife may hurt him just as much as anything they fire off directly at him. Although it does create the possibility that Burke will take great offense to Anne being criticized and could add people to his personal ‘enemies’ list.

WHAT’S THAT OLD cliché, remembered by many as a line from the film The Godfather? “Revenge is a dish that tastes best when it is served cold.”

The bottom line is that we could be in for an ugly political war, with Ed Burke doing his best to be none other than “Don Corleone” himself.

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